April 13, 2006
Pedro Feliz is congratulated by teammates after his grand slam in the sixth gave the Giants the lead.
Feliz, Giants Break Out The Brooms
Houston 4,
San Francisco 6
The Giants started their series against Houston by snapping a nasty losing streak, but they leave riding an entirely different streak with three straight wins to send them with high spirits into a ten-game road trip against their divisional rivals. Ace Jason Schmidt pitched six innings for his first victory of the season and third baseman Pedro Feliz drove in five runs to lead the Giants' offense.
The Astros lead 4-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth, collecting nine hits off of Jason Schmidt before Roy Oswalt started to waver. He walked Durham on four pitches to start the inning, then gave up a one-out single to Randy Winn who moved up to second on the throw. With a base open, Barry Bonds was issued a familiar intentional walk, but Pedro Feliz made the most out of a 2-2 fastball, belting it into the left field stands for a grand slam home run that gave the Giants the lead.
San Francisco added an insurance run later in the inning that proved unecessary as Tyler Walker and Jeremy Accardo shut the Astros down in the seventh and eighth and Jeff Fassero pitched a scoreless ninth for his first save of the season. Felipe Alou insisted that Fassero's appearance was just a situational one, not a sign that Tim Worrell's job was in jeopardy. "The Astros, they had a couple of lefties due up and Worrell and Kline had pitched the last two days, so I brought in Fassero," he explained. "The only other guys available were [Brian] Wilson and [Scott] Munter and I didn't want to throw the rookies into a tight spot like that."
The off day throws off the Giants rotation as they were eager to throw Schmidt in against the tough Oswalt, meaning that Matt Morris will start tomorrow against the Dodgers to be followed by Kevin Correia and Matt Cain.